Nate pushed harder. More roots. More green light. The forest was responding to him in ways I'd never seen.
I took down another zombie wolf. Then another. Evan fought at my flank, our movements synchronized by years of training and the pack bond that sang between us. Father and son, fighting together, protecting each other the way it had always been meant to be.
Michael had moved to cover Gideon and Nate, his silver blade creating a perimeter of protection around the magic-users. He fought like a man who'd learned violence late but learnedit well. Every strike purposeful. Every motion economical. No wasted energy. No wasted fear.
He caught my eye across the chaos and grinned. Actually grinned, despite the horror around us.
“This is insane!” he shouted. “This is absolutely fucking insane!”
I would have laughed if I could. Instead, I sent a pulse of warmth through the pack bond. Acknowledgment. Pride. Something that might have been love, if I'd let myself name it.
The last zombie wolf fell to a combined strike from Rafe and Evan. My son's jaws on its throat, Rafe's claws tearing at its spine. It dissolved like all the others, leaving nothing behind but the echo of what it had been.
Silence fell over the clearing.
We stood among the remains of the corruption, panting, bleeding, alive. Gideon's hands were still glowing faintly. Nate had collapsed to his knees, exhausted but triumphant. Evan shifted back to human, naked and bloody and beautiful with victory.
Rafe stood apart from the rest of us, still in wolf form, staring at the empty places where his pack's bodies had been.
They were truly gone now. Returned to the earth by Nate's magic, given peace by the same power that had been used to violate them.
“It's done,” Gideon said quietly. “The death energy's been released. Purified. Whatever they were storing here, it's gone now.”
“Who?” Michael asked. His voice was hoarse. “Who would do this?”
Gideon's expression went grim. “Someone with knowledge they shouldn't have.” His eyes found mine. “Someone who wanted Rafe to survive. To be found. To lead us here.”
Rafe shifted back to human. Stood there naked and shaking, tears still wet on his face.
Gideon cleared his throat. “We should burn them. Properly. Give them the rites they deserved.”
Rafe looked up, something like hope cracking through the grief. “You'd do that?”
“They were wolves.” I met his eyes. “They deserve a wolf's farewell.”
We gathered what remained. The bodies Nate's magic had returned to the earth were beyond our reach now, but the clearing itself still held their memory. Gideon walked the perimeter, murmuring words in a language I didn't recognize, his hands leaving trails of soft golden light that sank into the soil like rain.
“I'm cleansing the ground,” he explained when Michael raised an eyebrow. “Releasing whatever's left. Letting them go properly.”
Evan and I built a pyre at the center of the scorched circle. Not for bodies, since there were none left to burn, but for memory. For ritual. Branches and deadfall arranged with the same care our ancestors had used for generations.
Nate contributed wildflowers he'd found at the edge of the clearing. Yellow and white, somehow still blooming despite the corruption that had poisoned everything else. He laid them on the pyre with gentle hands.
“For Elena,” Rafe said quietly, watching. “She loved wildflowers. Used to plant them everywhere, drove Warren crazy because they'd pop up in the training grounds.”
Michael moved to stand beside him. Didn't say anything. Just stood there, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.
Rafe's breath hitched. “And Damian. He was... he was like a father to me, after mine died. Taught me everything. How to track. How to fight. How to be a wolf worth respecting.”
“Tell me about him,” Michael said softly.
And Rafe did. Words spilling out between tears, stories about a gruff older wolf who'd taken a grieving teenager under his wing and turned him into something worth saving. About pack dinners and terrible jokes and the way Damian used to howl off-key during full moons just to make the pups laugh.
Michael listened. That was all. Just listened, his presence steady and warm beside a man who'd lost everyone.
When Rafe's voice finally gave out, Michael put a hand on his shoulder. Rafe flinched, then leaned into it, then broke completely, and Michael caught him.
Held him while he sobbed.
